Films and the Home Front — the evaluation of their effectiveness by ‘Mass-Observation’

Abstract

I am in a slightly difficult position here and I should like to explain myself a little before coming to my subject. In the nature of things what I am talking about always tends to be critical; and, further, it is based on material collected by Mass-Observation 30 years ago — since when I have spent 25 years living in South-East Asia. I have come back from the jungle to this old vomit, now housed in the University of Sussex as a separate archive. It is not always easy to interpret it properly today. So I am going to rely mainly on a long series of typewritten documents (what we call file reports in our archive) done principally for the Ministry of Information. Curiously enough, I have never been able to find my letter of employment from them. But Dr Ian McLaine has discovered it in the Public Record Office. It is so typical of the whole Ministry of Information set-up that it was signed by Leigh Ashton, later distinguished Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum. I did not even know he was in Bloomsbury’s war-time Tower of White Words.

Keywords

Feature Film Horne Front National Panel Home Front Front File

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Transcript. Tom Harrisson died before he could prepare this paper for publication. The editors thought it appropriate to include it as delivered, with only a minimum of alterations.

Tom Harrisson, DSO, OBE, after graduating from the University of Cambridge, explored Borneo and other areas as an anthropologist before returning to England in 1937. Co-founder of Mass-Observation, a research organisation studying the social habits of the natives of England and publishing the results in a racy and popular form. Served in the Ministry of Information, 1940–2, thereafter in the army as a parachute officer on special service behind the Japanese lines in Borneo and Sarawak. Taught in several universities as a visiting professor as well as conducting research into a wide range of subjects. Died 1976. His publications include Savage Civilisation (1937), Living amongst Cannibals (1937), Mass Observation (1938), Britain by Mass-Observation (1939), War Begins at Home (1940), Home Propaganda (1941), People in Production (1942) and Britain Revisited (1959) and 17 other books. Produced with Hugh Gibbs the award-winning film series The Borneo Story.